i didn't know i was lonely 'til i saw your face
by ausllydawmoon
Summary: Or where they run into each other at the mall and he has to bribe her to hang out with him. Auslly. One-shot.


**requested by AusllyLuvver222. sorry it's two years late, hope you like it :)**

* * *

She doesn't normally have the luxury of hanging out at the mall. Usually she's either working, doing homework, at school, or sleeping. But today is different. Today, she finally gets some time to herself for the first time in ages.

Unfortunately, that time to herself is interrupted by her least favorite person in the world (which is saying something): Austin 'Gold Star' Moon.

"Ally Dawson, right?" he says, walking up to her with that signature lazy smirk on his face.

"Leave me alone," she mutters, trying to push past him. He steps in her way.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," he notes, looking her up and down.

She sighs. "What do you want, Moon? There's a reason I don't talk to you at school."

"It's not like _you're _approachable."

"Yeah, that's kinda the point."

He rolls his eyes. "Listen, sunshine, I'm really not a fan of your whole angry misanthrope shtick—"

"And I'm not a fan of your perfect golden boy shtick."

"—_but _I have a proposition for you."

"Don't wanna hear it." She tries walking away again, but he puts out an arm to block her path.

"I don't like disliking people. I really don't. So, since we're here, why don't we hang out and maybe get to know each other? That way we might at least be able to go on civilly instead of hating each other."

"Like you said, disliking people is kinda my thing. And since I don't care if you don't like me, it's not my problem."

"What if we make it more interesting?" he says quickly, before she can turn around and walk away from him. "For as long as we're hanging out, I'll buy you whatever you want, and you can buy me whatever I want."

"Not all of us live on an estate and have a house in Fiji."

"Well, since I already _have _everything, there's not much else I could want, right? What do you have to lose?"

"My money."

"Fine. I'll just buy you whatever you want, _but _you have to go with me to see that new horror movie _Graystone Manor _later, and I get to pick the snacks. Even Steven."

"I don't need your _charity_."

"Then don't ask me for anything! C'mon, I'm sick of this stupid archenemy thing we have. I wanna find the redeeming qualities I _know _you have."

She raises her eyebrows at him. "You're a real dick, you know that?"

He frowns. "Uh…no, no one's told me that before. I'm sorry?"

She crosses her arms, wanting nothing more than to get out of here. "If I do this with you, you never bother me or talk to me again."

"If you still hate me by the end of the day—"

"I will."

"—then I'll never ever even go _near _you again. It'll be like I don't exist to you."

She thinks about it. That _would _be nice, not having to see him flash her that idiotic smile every day like he does to everyone else. He'll finally stop trying to put her under whatever spell it is that has everyone else at their school kissing the ground he walks on.

She lifts her chin, meeting his eyes. "Fine."

* * *

An hour later, she finds herself following him as he wanders through a store that sells exclusively customizable sports equipment. She glances around at the jerseys hanging on the walls, the lacrosse and hockey sticks and baseball bats leaning against specialized display stands, and balls for every sport sitting on the shelves. She knows Golden Boy Austin Moon is on the football and basketball teams at their school, but she didn't think he was _this _into it.

"So Ally, you've been basically silent this whole time. What do you like to do?" he asks as he examines a baseball bat with a name engraved on it.

She shrugs, looking anywhere but at him. "I don't really have time to do anything. I actually have to _work_."

"Oh, really?" Austin says, glancing over at her as he weighs the bat in his hand. "Where do you work?"

She raises an eyebrow at him warily. Why would he care about her personal life unless he was going to use whatever he learns against her somehow? Although he _did _say he wanted to get to know her. Maybe there's a small chance he meant it.

"My dad's music store, Sonic Boom. I work the register and give lessons."

"That must be fun," he says with a smile. "Do you teach kids usually or adults?"

"Mostly kids," she replies as he leads them to the register with the bat.

The cashier passes Austin a form to place an order for the custom bat in the style of the one he brought over, and Austin fills it out quickly.

"I love kids," he says absentmindedly as he passes the form and his credit card to the cashier. She runs it and hands the card back to Austin along with a receipt.

"Shouldn't I have bought that?"

"No."

She follows him in shocked silence as they exit the store. How can he spend so much money on something so unnecessary without batting an eye?

"Do you even play baseball?" she asks him, right as he opens his mouth to say something else.

He looks over at her, knitting his eyebrows. Then he must realize what she's talking about. "I used to," he says, "but the bat's not for me. That's why I didn't let you pay for it. It's for my brother's birthday. He's turning ten."

"Oh."

After a few minutes of strained silence, Austin speaks up again. "You're not great at holding conversations, are you?"

She looks at him, raising her eyebrows. "You're no charmer yourself."

Austin tilts his head thoughtfully. "Really? Most people seem to think I am." He shrugs. "Anyway, I work at a gym. Like, for gymnastics. I coach the young boys." He grins. "They're really fun."

"You work?" she asks incredulously, stopping in the middle of the walkway.

He stops and faces her, his eyebrows knit together. "Yeah…? Why wouldn't I?"

"Because your family has so much money, they use hundred-dollar bills as toilet paper."

Austin shrugs. "My parents wanted me to learn a good work ethic, and I wanted something to do, you know? I'd get bored just sitting around all day."

"I would think you'd always be with all your friends instead."

Something in his face changes, and he keeps walking, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She raises her eyebrows and catches up beside him. "I guess I just like doing something a little more productive," he says.

"So, you think you'll work when you're older?"

Austin glances over at her, that dumb smile back on his face. "Ally Dawson, are you…_holding a conversation_? I stand corrected from earlier." She doesn't say anything, and somehow he must take it as an invitation to keep talking. Or maybe he just knows it'll annoy her and he loves the sound of his own voice. "Yeah, I'm gonna work when I'm older. I think my parents want me to join the family business, but truth be told I'm not even really sure what the family business is. And that probably means it's kinda sketchy, and I'm not really about that. But since I'll have the money, maybe I'll start my own business." He shrugs. "I don't know what I wanna do yet. What about you?"

"I'll probably get my business degree and work in a cubicle until my dad dies and leaves Sonic Boom to me, and then I'll do that for the rest of my life."

"Must be nice already knowing what you wanna do with your life," he muses.

"I know what I'm _going to _do with my life. Because I don't really have the option of getting to do what I _want_."

He looks over at her. "Okay, say you did have that option. You could do anything and be successful. What would you want to do?"

She's never thought about that before. She frowns wordlessly as they walk into another store. Austin must stop expecting an answer, because he starts looking at clothes and humming along to the song playing in the store.

"I'd be an elementary school music teacher," she says quietly.

Still, he must hear her because he turns to look at her and smiles. "I think you'd be good at that," he says. "But you'd have to drop the whole angry misanthrope thing."

She glares at him. "Good thing I can't do it, then. I don't know what you want me to say, Moon, I'm not a people person."

He has the audacity to _laugh_. "You're a kid person."

"It's different."

"Not really. But you do you, sunshine." He puts his hands up in mock surrender.

"Call me _sunshine _one more time, and I'll—"

"You'll what?" Austin interrupts, leaning toward her. "You don't intimidate me, Ally. You may look scary and act all tough, but I know you don't really hate people, you're just _scared_ of everyone else."

"Excuse me?"

"You pretend to hate people to hide the fact that you're actually too afraid of rejection to let anyone in."

"How could you _possibly _think that?" she asks, taking a step back from him.

"It's in everything you do. You're perfectly nice to strangers, and you're only mean to people who might actually _know _things about you, like classmates. Like me. I don't think you mind being around people. Hell, you even said you willingly work with kids, and I saw you smile when I said I love kids. But you don't want anyone to get to know you and then decide they don't like what they've found, so instead of risking that you just _make _everyone dislike you off the bat by pretending to dislike them."

"That's bullshit."

"I don't think it is."

"Okay, well, I don't really care what you think, and I didn't ask you to psychoanalyze me. So how about you _back off_?"

She shoves past him and goes to the women's section of the store. She starts sifting through cute little sundresses she'll never be able to afford just to focus on something—_anything_—other than Austin and what he's saying. He doesn't push her anymore, and after a few seconds of silence where she can _feel _his eyes on her, she hears him shifting clothes around again as he looks at them. She releases a breath she didn't know she was holding.

A few minutes later, she moves on to a section full of oversized t-shirts with movies, bands, and other graphics on the front. She hears footsteps approaching, and she tries not to stiffen up when she feels him stop right behind her.

"You know, if you really want random shirts that are way too big for you, I have a closet full of them."

She ignores him, examining a white shirt with the famous Beatles picture on it. Apparently, her silence doesn't discourage him.

"Or, you know, if you had a boyfriend, you could take all of his. But if you keep pretending to hate everyone—"

"I don't need relationship advice from _you_," she interrupts, turning to face him and finding that he is _way _too close for comfort. He seems to realize it too, because he takes a step back from her. "Have you ever even been in a relationship?"

"No, but neither have you."

"I'm not the one trying to give unsolicited relationship advice," she points out. "Why are you even hanging out with me anyway? Don't you have about a million friends you could've come here with? Ones you _don't _have to bribe to spend time with you?"

Instead of looking at her, he looks at the Beatles shirt she's still holding. "You want this?" he asks her, and grabs it out of her hand before she can answer.

"I was just looking at it," she protests as she follows him to the register, where he buys the shirt in the blink of an eye. "I only know, like, one Beatles song."

"It'll look good on you," he mutters, taking the bag from the cashier and walking out of the store.

She clenches her jaw and marches after him. "You didn't have to do that," she says. "I didn't ask for it—"

"Well, you're obviously notgonna ask for anything," he says.

"How come every time I mention your friends you change the subject?" she asks him.

"I thought you didn't like talking to me."

"You're doing it again." She turns her head to look up at him with a smirk. "You don't have any friends, do you?"

"I have friends," he mutters. The shopping bag he's carrying crinkles as his fist tightens around it.

"You had no problem bribing me to hang out with you because that's what you feel like you're doing with all your friends."

He's silent for a few seconds, and he stares at the ground. She watches him, almost feeling bad about what she said, even though she knows she's right.

"At least with you I know you're being real with me, not pretending to be my friend," he says.

"I guess you live kind of a sad life, huh?" she muses, turning her attention ahead of her just as she feels him turn to look at her.

"Gee, thanks."

"I mean, I thought you could never have anything to complain about, but I guess I didn't realize that you'll never really know if anyone really even likes you, or if they're only pretending to because they wanna take advantage of you."

"If you're trying to help, you're doing a pretty shitty job."

"Oh, I'm not trying to help. Just thinking out loud. I never thought about how maybe there's something worse than outright rejection, and that _you _of all people might know that." She looks at him again, tilting her head. "Why'd you even wanna hang out with me anyway, if you knew you'd have to bribe me just like all the others?"

This time, he looks over at her with a small smile on his face. "Because I knew you still wouldn't do it unless a small part of you actually wanted to."

She raises an eyebrow. "You think any part of me would want to spend time with you if you weren't buying me anything I asked for?"

He shrugs and looks ahead of him, an annoyingly amused look on his face. "I think you aren't gonna ask for anything. Is it really bribery if you're not gonna partake?"

"Yes."

"I dunno, I just think maybe you needed an excuse that would hide the fact that maybe you don't hate people as much as you like to pretend you do."

"Yeah, that's not it."

"I'm just calling it like I see it," Austin says innocently. "But I'll be honest, I think you're the closest thing I have to a real friend. So you're not alone in the whole…well, 'being alone' thing."

"Maybe I wanna be alone."

"Nobody wants to be alone."

She looks at him, and he looks at her. That small, slightly amused smile is still on his face, and honestly she can't bring herself to resent him for it. In fact, she finds herself almost smiling too.

"What?" he asks, tilting his head with an annoying twinkle in his eyes.

"Nothing," she says quickly, blinking and tearing her eyes away from him. _Since when do I care what he thinks? _she asks herself. Clearing her throat, she adds, "You have a nice smile, is all."

She feels him nudge her with his shoulder, and she doesn't have to look at him to know that tiny smile has grown into a face-filling grin. "That was a real-life compliment. Ally, are you _connecting_?" he asks her cheekily.

"Only if you're asking about my fist _connecting_ with your face."

He laughs genuinely, and she's glad her hair hides her second small smile from his view. She'd never admit it to anyone, but hanging out with him actually isn't so bad now that she's stopped fighting it so hard. It's almost _enjoyable_, even.

"C'mon," he says, "the movie's gonna start soon. Time to hold up your end of the bargain."

The realization dawns on her when they walk into the movie theater. "Don't tell me," she says, stopping before the box office and looking at him with an arched eyebrow. He looks at her in confusion. "Did you do all this just because you wanted to have someone to go to the movies with?" she asks.

"What are you talking about?"

"You wanted a friend to go to the movies with. That's why you bribed me to hang out with you—you just want someone to be there with you for the horror movie."

He watches her for a second, then shrugs and walks up to the counter to buy their tickets. She follows him, pulling out her own wallet, but he puts an arm in front of her to keep her arms at her sides.

"So what if I do?" he finally responds as they head to the concession counter. "Scary movies are no fun if you watch them alone, and my other friends…" He trails off, his eyebrows crinkling together and a frown appearing on his face. Then he quickly shakes his head, as if to snap himself out of a memory. "They're no fun to watch movies with."

She watches his face as he buys popcorn and a bag of M&Ms, keeps her eyes on the way his jaw stays clenched until they sit down in the theater. Even as he carefully empties the bag of M&Ms into the popcorn and mixes them as best he can without spilling, his eyes seem to come in and out of focus.

"Find what you're looking for?" he finally asks, shoving a handful of the popcorn-and-M&M mix into his mouth and looking over at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" she says, meeting his eyes.

He swallows. "You've been staring at me for the past five minutes. I mean, I'm used to girls staring at me, but I thought you were better than that, Ally."

She clenches her jaw and narrows her eyes, preparing to argue, but his lazy smirk makes her realize he's just trying to piss her off. And it's working.

"You're the one who goes all broody any time you talk about your friends. Or lack thereof," she fires back, scooping a handful of popcorn and M&Ms into her own mouth.

He crinkles his nose in annoyance, and if she didn't hate him she would almost find it cute. But before he can say anything else, the lights dim and the movie starts.

She grabs another handful of their snack just in time before the first scene opens with a jump scare, making both her flinch. Austin flinches too, but he immediately breaks into a fit of giggles. Unfortunately, Austin's the one holding the popcorn bag, and he spills popcorn and M&Ms all over himself. She glances over at him and snorts as he stops giggling, curses under his breath, and starts picking food off his shirt and lap, popping each piece into his mouth.

"Gross," she whispers, looking back at the movie screen.

"Waste not," he whispers back, tossing a piece of popcorn at her.

She frowns and pulls it out of her hair, but before she can drop it on the floor, he takes it out of her hand and eats it. She looks at him, crinkling her nose in disgust.

"I'm assuming your hair is clean. If not, then who's the gross one now?" he challenges her, still in a whisper. But the man sitting in front of Austin shushes them before Ally can fire back a response.

So they continue on like that for most of the movie, both jumping at all the appropriate moments, her silently making fun of him for spilling their popcorn, then going back to normal after being shushed by someone sitting near them. She knows that hypothetically what they're doing could be classified as flirting, but for once she doesn't really mind.

However, as tough as she likes to act, she realizes that horror movies really aren't her thing. Something about watching a bunch of kids her age being brutally slaughtered by an unlikely team of a serial killer and some evil supernatural _thing _doesn't sit well with her. By the time only half of the original cast is left, she has her knees pulled up to her chest and is watching the movie through her fingers. Oddly enough, she feels a little better after every jump scare when Austin grabs her arm and falls into a fit of giggles.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have time to close her eyes before the character she most identified with is killed during an unexpected jump scare that kicks off the final battle. She yelps and flinches in her seat, along with the rest of the theater, but this time she grabs Austin's arm first and buries her face in his shoulder. She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart, and she's overwhelmed by the scent of expensive cologne.

Once she remembers who she's with, she sits up and swallows, tilting her head up to look at the ceiling instead of the movie. Austin doesn't comment, and his giggles die down again as he focuses on the massacre taking place on the screen.

_Nope, not for me. Not today, _Ally decides.

At the next jump scare, she winces and squeezes her eyes shut, even though she isn't even looking at the screen, and focuses on Austin's incessant giggling instead of the screams of the teenagers being murdered onscreen. Somehow, it helps.

And then, when Austin squeezes her hand as she grips the armrest for dear life, it helps a little more. He doesn't _hold _her hand or anything like that, just a quick squeeze as if to remind her he's there. It's really the only acknowledgement he gives of her little freak-out a few minutes ago. She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again. _How long can the final battle really be? _

She looks at the movie again and sees that there are still three of the seven original teenagers, meaning that two more of them probably have to die before the movie is over. She sighs and reaches into the popcorn bag. Not only does she find it empty, but instead of popcorn, she feels another hand. She pulls her hand out of the bag quickly and clears her throat, glancing over at him. He's already looking at her.

He holds her gaze, and she swallows nervously. She knows that look; not from anyone looking at _her _that way, but oddly enough, from seeing Austin look at other girls that way in the halls at school. She really doesn't wanna be another one of Austin's groupies, but a part of her knows that this is different; Austin might actually _like _her, somehow.

So when he kisses her, she kisses him right back.

Surely he knows it's her first kiss, but when they pull away, he doesn't tease her about it or tell her how bad she probably was. Instead, he just gives her one of those small smiles and lifts up the armrest between them. Just in time, too, because at that moment a particularly loud jump scare makes them both flinch and grab onto each other. Austin, par for the course, immediately starts giggling and drapes an arm over her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. She tries to resist, but then slowly allows herself to lean into him. If she's serious about not caring what anyone thinks—and she genuinely thought she was, up until now—then why should she care if he knows she might kinda sorta no longer hate him?

When the movie ends, they leave the theater holding hands, but neither one of them acknowledges it.

"So, you're not a horror movie person," he notes as they squint in the light of the mall.

"Do you know how creepy it is that you _laugh _whenever someone's getting brutally murdered?"

"I don't laugh at them getting murdered," he says. "I laugh because I like the thrill of jump scares. You know the feeling I'm talking about. You may hate it, but I love it. I can't help it!"

"Say what you want, but I'm pretty sure that makes you about ten times more likely to become a serial killer," she says.

"I thought I was the golden boy," Austin replies.

"Ted Bundy was very charming and likable. Didn't stop him from being a murderer."

"How about another deal: I promise not to kill you, and you don't question why I suddenly start coming home covered in blood."

She tries to stop herself, but she can't help the small laugh that escapes her throat. She shakes her head. "You say that like we're gonna be hanging out more often."

"Just a hunch, I guess," he says, making a point of swinging their interlaced hands.

She sees him glance at her out of the corner of her eye, and she realizes that maybe he hasn't openly acknowledged the kiss yet because he's letting her decide if she wants to acknowledge it. Maybe he's worried she only did it because of how scared she was during the movie, or maybe he figured she might need time to process her first kiss. Or maybe he somehow got to know her so well in the past few hours that he knows she's gonna need to take things slow. It wouldn't surprise her—he read her like a book earlier.

"Find what you're looking for?" she asks him when a few minutes pass and he hasn't looked away from her. She turns her head to meet his eyes, and he clears his throat uncomfortably.

"Sorry," he says. "I just…" He stops walking, and she stops with him, tilting her head at him. She's never seen him nervous before. In fact, before today, she never saw him without his trademark lazy smirk on his face.

"I like you, Ally," he says, seeming to search her eyes to gauge her reaction. "And I know you probably think this is some sort of trick, or somehow just not true, but it is. I really like you."

Ally swallows and gently pulls her hand away from his and opens her mouth to respond, but he keeps talking before she can.

"I honestly didn't expect today to go how it did. I thought best case scenario, we would part ways as civil acquaintances in my mind and probably still bitter enemies in yours. But you're funny, and honest, and easy to talk to. Eventually." She laughs a little at that, and he smiles. "I know you don't really trust me, and I don't expect you to. But we can take it slow, as slow as you want. I won't even touch you again if you're not there yet. But—"

"Austin," she interrupts, steeling herself for the most difficult, albeit absolutely true, sentence she's ever spoken. "I was just gonna say…I like you too."

Austin immediately grins at her. "You do?"

She nods, smiling a little at the way his face lights up. "Yeah. You're not so bad, I guess." She nudges him with her shoulder, and the grin turns into his signature smirk.

"Not so bad?" he asks. "That's all I get? I gave you honest and funny and easy to talk to."

"_Eventually_. You said I'm easy to talk to _eventually_."

He laughs at that. "Fair enough. So…we're doing this?"

She takes a deep breath and nods. "Slowly. Still not a people person."

"Slow is good," he says, an easygoing smile on his face. Then he drapes an arm over her shoulders, almost hesitantly. But when she doesn't shrug him off and even wraps an arm around his waist, he seems to relax and lets the full weight of his arm rest on her shoulders. She's surprised to find it comforting.

"I think I'd like to be a people person, though," she says. "Maybe. I just don't like talking to people, or being around large amounts of people."

Austin chuckles, and she looks up to find him already looking down at her. "Hey, if you became an _Austin _person, you can become a people person. But if you don't like being around people, there's really no reason to force yourself. Especially not when you've got a boyfriend who doesn't really have any friends either."

"Boyfriend?" she chokes.

He winces. "Unlabeled slightly significant other?"

The pink tint of his cheeks relaxes her, and she smiles at him. "Actually…" The way he grins at her as he realizes what she's about to say washes away any hesitation she may have had. "I think _boyfriend _is just fine."

* * *

**highly offended that any of u thought i was done writing auslly. (jk i love u) ((but seriously i can't believe anyone thought that))**


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